A Tale of Love
by Pellagolloien
Summary: My first LOTR fic...so please read!!! Legolas' friend tells him a story, and something is revealed to both of them at the end...!!!


Disclaimer: LOTR is not mine, and never will be....I would settle just for legolas though....  
  
AN: Urgh....such a cheesy title, but it fits perfectly to my story....yay!! Be nice when you review, this is my first Lord of the Rings fic. There's um.... no real timeline, 'cause it's just a one-shot, so just set it whenever you wanted. Also, this is a Legolas-based fic (yay!!)....I love him to bits and pieces. Btw: Ainafalathiel (pronounced Ah-ee- na....falathiel) is my own character, and throughout the fic I'll refer to her at several points as just 'Aina' (a nickname).  
  
A Tale of Love  
  
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Legolas and Ainafalathiel were camping in the vast forest in Mirkwood. They went on these trips once a month, just the two best friends together, in the safety of the woods. It wasn't uncommon, but tonight....there was a sulleness that neither friend could really place.  
  
Legolas and Aina were sleeping peacefully, but around the middle of the night, Legolas woke up on instinct, and saw that Aina was not in her sleeping bag. Slightly worried, he looked around, a followed a shall shaft of moonlight. Sure enough, the moonlight lead him right up to his best friend, Aina. She was standing where the wood smoothed out into the edge of a cliff, and staring forlornly at the moon.  
  
"Aina...." Legolas said tentatively. "Are you okay....?"  
  
"Hmmm.....?" She replied, slightly distracted, not turning around. "Oh, Legolas. No....no, I'm all right."  
  
"Are you sure?" Legolas asked, slowly walking nearer. "Is anything amiss?"  
  
"No, no-nothing's wrong at all...." she murmured softly, and almost involuntarily, a small sigh escaped from her lips, and Legolas was instantly put on the alert.  
  
"No, something is most certainly wrong, Aina. You can tell me, I'm your friend, remember?" Legolas tried jesting at her to make her laugh, for nothing made him more upset to see her not smiling.  
  
"Am I....just your friend?" Ainafalathiel said softly, as though speaking to herself, and as though trying to dissuade that thought from her mind, shook her head slowly.  
  
"Pardon?" Legolas asks, hearing what she said, yet not quite understanding.  
  
"Nothing....it is nothing...."  
  
"Please...." Legolas pleaded. "Nothing hurts me more than to see you upset. Please tell me...."  
  
Aftre a long while, Ainafalathiel-with her back still to him-begins softly, "Awhile ago, I was reading a story....I was just thinking about it.  
  
"A boy and a girl were the best of friends, but the boy had a secret that no one knew about. He loved the girl very dearly, and for the longest of times....since the first moment he laid eyes on her. The two had grown up together, but it wasn't for a long while that the boy finally confessed his love to her. Not only did she not return the love, but she actually rebuked it, and returned his heart-which he had so willingly offered on a silver plate-bleeding and stabbed. See, she had insisted that she would never need a man in her life, and was perfectly content being on her own.  
  
"The boy was frustrated, but since his love for her ran so deep and so pure, that he was willing to wait for her, to see if she would change her approach. After a while, he saw that the wait was in vain, for the girl only became more headstrong and independent in her ways. Finally, he confronted her and said, "I will love you with all my heart forever, and into eternity, but I do not have forever and an eternity to wait for you to love me in return." With that, he disappeared from her life for a brief while. In a few months, the girl heard through the grapevine at how he was going to marry another woma. She felt a longing, a paning in her heart, but since she could not place the devastation, she ignored it.  
  
"Time passed, and the man was now married to a woman he cared for deeply, but did not love. On day, he woke up, expecting to see the face of the woman he truly loved beside him, and looked down only to see that it was not shee. Disgusted at the betrayal he committed to his heart, he jumped off a cliff, only to greet the jagged rocks below.  
  
"When the girl heard of this, she was devastated, and then realized through her grief that she had loved him as much as he had she, and jumped off the same cliff so that they could be united together for all eternity." She finished with a hint of sorrow lingering in her soft voice. The soft, despondent tone that she had started out with in the tale, had remained constant throughout the whole storytelling.  
  
Legolas looked at her in wonderment. "....that was a beautiful tale...." he said after a moment. "I am glad that you were able to share it with me. I am your friend, Aima. I will always be here for you...."  
  
"Only your friend...." Ainafalathiel whispered sadly, she turned to Legolas, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Her voice broke slightly when she murmured her next few words. "Sometimes....just sometimes-do you not wish that it was more....?" slightly afraid of his answer, she turned away, and stared at the ethereal globe of the moon again, the tears swallowed again, she refused to let them fall. Legolas stared in bewilderment at the back of her head, but then the true meaning of her words sunk in.  
  
Hesitantly, he walked up to Aina and slipped his arms around her waist. "I do...." he whispered into her pointed ear. "But not just sometimes. I always have wished that we were more tha just friends and I always will until the day you feel the same way too." Aina turned fully in his arms, looking at him with shock clearly displayed on her face. Legolas leaned forward until his forehead was resting on her's. "I want to be more than just a friend when I hear you talk.... when I see your smile.... when I hear you laugh...." his voice faltered a bit for it was so choked with emotion.  
  
By this point, Ainafalathiel had closed her lids, not quite wanting to look at him, but a small smile flitted across Aina's face when she realized what he had just said, and one tear escaped from her closed lids.  
  
"Do not cry," Legolas murmured, his lips brushing the crystal teardrop that was trailing down her cheeek. "I would give up everything I have....if so you would never shed a tear in your immortal life. I cannot bear to see you sad. It is hearbreaking to me....every tear you drop."  
  
Aina fully opened her eyes, so that Legolas could see that she was not crying out of sadness, but out of joy.  
  
"I love you, Prince Legolas...." she murmured, finally saying the words aloud.  
  
"And I love you, milady Aina. I always have, and I always will." His lips then swooped down and captured hers in a pasisonate kiss. One filled with love and friendship and hope.  
  
* * *  
  
~THE END~  
  
AN: if you're as big of a Legolas fan as I am, notice that I didn't put any physical descriptions of Aina at all....I was kinda thinking that it would be a lotta fun to put yourself in HER position....so you can make her look anyway you like!!! ^_~ 


End file.
